


Open Your Arms To Me

by Akaihyou, araydre



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2018, Dehumanization, Denial, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Reconciliation, Self-Discovery, Self-Hatred, Steve Rogers is not perfect, Stubborn Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Wakandan Science Did It, protective winter soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-26 12:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaihyou/pseuds/Akaihyou, https://archiveofourown.org/users/araydre/pseuds/araydre
Summary: Bucky isn’t out of the bed he’s been put in to recover when he’s asked what to do with the HYDRA part. It’s alive and healing... regenerating... whatever, as well as he is, physically.  They haven’t let it wake up yet. No one is completely sure itwillwake up—or if it will have anything like a natural human mind, if it does. He, really. He should try to think of it as a person. Him as a person.He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to think of the Winter Soldier at all.“I take it all back, Rogers,” Tony snarls as soon as Steve picks up. “I really do want to kill Barnes.”“Tony?” Steve yawns, rudely yanked out of dearly-needed sleep. Tony’s words hit him. “What the hell?” He thought they’d been on the way to working things out.It’s a mark of exactly how upset Tony is that he doesn’t comment on Steve’s language. “I have half of my parents’ murderer defrosting in Hulk’s room!”Steve bolts upright and lunges for the set of Wakandan beads that let him check for updates on Bucky. “Wait, what?”





	Open Your Arms To Me

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written by Akaihyou for an art prompt by araydre. 
> 
> Many thanks to araydre and my beta ladra for giving their time and energy on the day of posting because I pulled the whole thing together a little last-minute.

Bucky runs his right hand over his left arm. His new left arm: a mirror of the right, but hairless and the pink of new skin. His whole left side is like that. No more metal. No more artificial muscles. That scar above his left knee, a deep one he’s never remembered receiving, is gone too. Or, at least, he doesn’t have it anymore. “So, what, you just cut me in half like a starfish and grew two of us?”

Princess Shuri frowns at him, but her eyes are dancing a little. She might be as excited by the results as he is. “It’s not that simple, Sergeant Barnes. There was your mind to untangle as well.”

“Bucky,” he reminds her, “Princess.” He can feel the fingers he rubs together, the thumb he strokes over the veins in his new left wrist. He has actual blood vessels there. It’s stunning. Of course he knows they didn’t cut his head in half. Brains don’t work like that. He’s not a literal hydra. He’s not any part HYDRA, not anymore. He’s a little giddy about it. “Thank you. This is incredible. However you did it. Thank you.”

 

Bucky isn’t out of the bed he’s been put in to recover when he’s asked what to do with the HYDRA part. It’s alive and healing... regenerating... whatever, as well as he is, physically. It's only lagging a bit behind because it had less… body mass to start with due to the metal arm being blasted off at the shoulder. He doesn’t know how it got its own head. He’s not clear on the science and, if he’s honest, he doesn’t really want to be. They tell him the trigger words aren’t a part of him anymore. They tell him the Winter Soldier hasn’t done anything but lie unconscious in a bed. They haven’t let it wake up yet. No one is completely sure it _will_ wake up—or if it will have anything like a natural human mind, if it does. He, really. He should try to think of it as a person. Him as a person.

He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to think of the Winter Soldier at all.

Fitting, that the Winter Soldier was created from Bucky’s left side, the sinister side. He wonders briefly if that means the Winter Soldier has his original heart, but decides he’s better off not knowing or thinking about that either.

“Mr. Barnes?” prompts T'challa.

Bucky raises his head to look at the king. There’s one solution here. It’s only fair. Steve’s friends didn’t deserve the Raft. Bucky, or the Winter Soldier, does. Steve won’t let Bucky go and Bucky is selfish enough to want his freedom now that he’s had a taste. From what Bucky remembers, freedom isn’t really a concept the Winter Soldier grasped.

He takes a breath. There’s only one way to make any part of this right. “Tony Stark.” Saying that name is painful. Bucky hadn’t had a choice. If this whole division thing is right, Bucky wasn’t actually present at the time. Still, he feels sick shame and guilt over what the Soldier did. “It’s the Winter Soldier he wanted in Siberia. Whatever measures he has ready for me or Steve…send the Winter Soldier to Tony Stark.”

 

Steve is out of the country with the rest of the rogue Avengers. He was there, briefly, when they first took Bucky out of cryo. He hovered too much, after. Bucky couldn’t stand to have Steve constantly fretting over him. He told him to go.

He hasn’t returned by the time the Winter Soldier is gone too.

Bucky can’t help feeling relieved. Guilty and selfish, but relieved. He can’t handle worrying about anyone else right now. No adults, at least. The Wakandan kids who come to gawk at him aren’t so bad. Their fascination is more tolerable than bothersome.

The children tell him the little house in which he convalesces is called an _indlu._ There’s a lake. The weather is warm, but not too warm for comfort. At first, he thinks it’s quieter than he was used to in Romania. He learns pretty quickly that the sound of nature is more than a match for the bustle of a city. It doesn’t grate on him, though. Not like the high tech hospital where he’d been before.

Half his body is brand spanking new. It’s not like recovering from an injury; these muscles have never done anything Bucky expects to be able to do. Two whole limbs and an alarming portion of his core have no coordination or muscle memory. Without the weight of the metal arm, he feels lopsided, uneven. Simply standing up on two legs takes all his energy. He has to relearn how to crawl, then how to walk, and he knows it will take weeks at best before he can even think of running. He spends a lot of time in the water. Taking ownership of his half-new body and single-occupant psyche is all he can focus on for the foreseeable future.

It won’t be long, he knows, before he has to deal with everything he’s been trying not to think about, but, for now, it’s almost like peace.

 

The Asset is blind. Always blind, coming out of cryostasis, but this feels different. Fresh. It tries not to gasp, breathing too-warm air as shallowly as it can. Something is different. It can’t pin down exactly what, but something is different. Wrong? No, it’s not its place to make that assessment. It waits. It waits to be grabbed and torn from the safety of the cryochamber. It waits for commands, for some sign of what will come next.

Whatever happens, it will comply as well as it can. The Asset is the Asset. Its purpose is to be an obedient weapon. It won’t struggle or argue. It _won’t_. Maybe this time _they_ ’ll see that and hurt it less.

It registers the angry voice first, long before language becomes meaningful. The voice is male, adult, rapid, distressed. From the tone and direction, the Asset doesn’t think it’s the one being spoken to. _They_ usually don’t address it until the mission briefing.

The angry voice retreats. A door shuts, cutting off the sound entirely.

The Asset breathes more deeply as it waits. Apart from its own soft breathing and the sluggish pulse of its warming blood, the silence is absolute.

If _they_ leave it long enough, maybe it will be able to walk on its own instead of having to be dragged. That feels important. It should be able to immediately obey whatever commands it receives.

Time passes. The Asset shivers, but the tank is oddly comfortable to lie still in. Even the restraints cause no discomfort. When _they_ come back, _they_ will find the Asset exactly where it was left, waiting compliantly. This is as it should be.

 

“I take it all back, Rogers,” Tony snarls as soon as Steve picks up. “I really do want to kill Barnes.”

“Tony?” Steve yawns, rudely yanked out of dearly-needed sleep. Tony’s words hit him. “What the hell?” He thought they’d been on the way to working things out.

It’s a mark of exactly how upset Tony is that he doesn’t comment on Steve’s language. “I have half of my parents’ murderer defrosting in Hulk’s room! One minute I’m accepting the samples Shuri sent over—very nice, by the way, and I totally need to send her a gift basket of my own—and then, hello, what the fuck, I’m signing for custody of a frozen Winter Soldier! Good thing we built that containment suite at the compound just in case, because I literally have a superassassin in a case!”

Now wide awake, Steve bolts upright and lunges for the set of Wakandan beads that let him check for updates on Bucky. “Wait, what?”

There’s nothing. No messages appear when he picks up the beads. _Goddamnit, Buck. What did you do?_

“Getting hard of hearing in your old age?” Tony snarks. “Your bosom Bucky shipped his unwanted crazy to me like a box of frozen fish! I don’t want it but FedEx doesn’t ship to Wakanda and it’s already starting to thaw out! Friday says it’s alive! What the hell is right! I thought the Wakandans were getting rid of it, not building a new Terminator model!”

Someone would have contacted him if Bucky had left Wakanda, he’s sure of it. What the hell is going on?

“Tony, I wasn’t even gonna talk to him until tomorrow at the earliest. All I know is… Oh.” It’s impossible, but there’s only one explanation.

“Oh?” Tony repeats, heavy on the sarcasm.

“They said…they could separate him from the Winter Soldier.”

 

Tony ends the call on Roger’s stupid flip phone and finds himself back in his workshop, breathing hard.

“Fri?”

“Boss?” FRIDAY responds. She hasn’t mastered concern yet, doesn’t take initiative like JARVIS had learned to, but she’s always there and she’s learning to be a better co-pilot.

“What’s the Winter Soldier doing?”

“Nothing, Boss. Shivering, maybe. No other movement.”

Frowning, Tony says, “Show me.”

The Winter Soldier hasn’t moved an inch. His eyes aren’t even open.

Lying in wait for someone to come back? Waiting for an opportunity to escape? There’s a small scar over Tony’s right ear from the escape in Berlin.

When he finally talks himself into taking another look at the Winter Soldier in person, he makes sure to wear an appropriate suit. For starters, this one has _two_ repulsors and a decent amount of kinetic absorption. Why he hadn’t thought to apply the technology he’d incorporated into the Spiderman suit to his own stuff before, he has no idea. It’s not like Tony doesn’t know, intimately, that there is no meaningful separation between being Tony Stark and Iron Man.

Tony stands in front of the open cryotube and stares at the face of his mother’s murderer, studying it for details he had missed before. The Winter Soldier has almost no hair, barely more than dark fuzz. No prosthetic either. Looks like the Wakandans only put a cap over the damaged shoulder. It’s weird. Without the iconic long hair and silver murder-arm, he looks naked and shockingly vulnerable, even with the loose white clothes he’s wearing. Tony guesses they’re the Wakandan version of a hospital gown.

Something chimes quietly, a sequence of nine soft notes. It’s probably a timer of some sort. Tony was a little distracted when the thing was delivered.

There’s a faint hiss and the restraints retract.

Snapping his hands up, repulsors ready, Tony takes up a defensive stance.

Pale eyes open, blinking slowly. They focus on Tony, who doesn’t move and barely breathes.

The lightly stubbled jaw shifts. Those eyes blink again. When he moves abruptly forward, Tony almost blasts him in the chest out of sheer nervous reflex.

The Winter Soldier falls out of the tube, almost at Tony’s feet. His three limbs twitch, uncoordinated, before he goes still, breathing hard.

What the hell.

 

The Asset has the motor control of an infant.

It discovers this when it tries to speak, fails, and then fails to step out of the cryotube, flopping painfully to the floor in front of the man it presumes must be its new handler. He doesn’t look like a guard.

At least its eyes do as they should.

The Asset is familiar with frustration. It is less familiar with failure.

So much for walking to the chair under its own power this time.

 

Tony doesn’t like to be handed things. He never asked to be handed _this._

At least he’s not alone. Rhodey visits occasionally, mostly when Tony has an idea for upgrade to his prosthetic, and video calls more often. Pepper visits and calls about company business. Vision has declared his intentions to go find himself, but he’s around for now.

"A large part of his body appears to be similar to my own," says Vision, studying the super soldier who lies on the cot in one of the Compound’s holding cells. It’s part of the same containment suit as the Hulk’s room, but has a person-sized bed in it. "There is less vibranium, but I can detect traces of that too. This growth was… guided.”

Tony pages through the data Shuri sent him. “Like Cho’s Cradle. Something like a 3D printer… His _brain_ is new. He’s got programming and some memories but no practice with this nervous system.”

Some peace offering. Even if Tony were inclined to beat on a prisoner, he wouldn’t attack someone this helpless. It isn’t like he can turn the Winter Soldier over to Ross like this either. He’d never make it to the Raft before getting whisked off to a lab somewhere. What is Barnes trying to prove? Is his opinion of Tony truly that low? Does he hate himself that much?

“Then, is he a new individual, as I was?”

 _That_ is an uncomfortable thought which had already occurred to him. Vision isn’t JARVIS, no matter how much of JARVIS’s programming and memory he has.

What proof is there that this is the Winter Soldier?

If he has a reason not to be sure, then he doesn’t have to call Ross.

If this might not be his parents’ murderer, he doesn’t have to deal with that yet either.

“Maybe,” Tony agrees. He sounds bleak to his own ears.

If this isn’t the Winter Soldier, what the hell is he supposed to do with the guy?

 

They don't drag it to the chair.

Instead, the Asset’s new handler speaks to the air until a new presence comes _through the wall_ and picks it up like it weighs nothing.

The Asset is still reeling from that surprise as it is carried through the hallways. It tries to go limp and pliant but its body won't obey its commands. It flails involuntarily—weakly, like a newborn—and if it were permitted to feel humiliated, it imagines it would.

The bed is a shock. It doesn’t understand. None of this is right. It doesn’t belong on a bed. Not unless it has been seriously damaged beyond its innate capacity for regeneration.

Which might explain why it can not control its body but does not account for the complete lack of pain. Any minor damage from falling healed while it was being carried. Its metal arm is missing, but that necessitates the chair and technicians, not a bed.

No medical bed should be this soft. However weak it is, the Asset should not remain unrestrained.

The Asset knows this. There should be predictable patterns. Something is different.

 

Steve worries constantly about what he will find once he returns to Wakanda. He hasn’t had any updates since the ones that told him the procedure to remove the Winter Soldier programming and triggers had been successful and Bucky had been moved out of Birnin Zana to recover in a natural setting. Clearly, he should have asked more questions before leaving, however frustrated Bucky had become with him.

When T’Challa confirms what Tony told him, he only wishes he was more shocked.

It’s just like Bucky, really. Steve wasn’t the only one with a hot temper, who could hold a grudge. Bucky’s could smolder painful and hot as a burning ember. He could also function perfectly well despite it. Being able to shunt aside his own feelings, assess what he needed to do, and do it was what had made him so good at having Steve’s back. It had made him a good soldier, a great sniper, and—thanks to HYDRA—one of the best assassins. Steve can barely begin to imagine what it must have been like to be confronted with the part of his past he hated most as a living, breathing, copy of himself. He can, if he works at it, almost see the logic of sending the doppelganger to Tony. Part of Steve is relieved Bucky has the energy to make that sort of decision. More of him is worried about what this choice will do to Bucky’s ability to forgive himself.

 _But I did it_ , Bucky had told him. It’s good that Bucky might not consciously blame himself anymore, but was the Winter Soldier any more responsible than Bucky? HYDRA had control of his mind. Steve had never blamed Bucky for what he had done as the Winter Soldier because the Winter Soldier had not been in control. How can Bucky…

He tries not to let his worry turn to anger at Bucky. He really does.

“Steve?” Bucky’s voice is rough, like he’s been sleeping. Barely visible in the darkness of his door, he rubs his eyes and squints at Steve’s approach.

Guiltily, Steve reminds himself that it’s the middle of the night, local time. Buck probably was sleeping. He should have waited until morning. They both sleep light these days and Steve’s footsteps must have been enough to wake him.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says and hopes he sounds as calm as he isn’t. He drops his bag on the ground. “T’Challa told me what happened. You okay, pal?”

Bucky lowers his hand—his left hand, Steve realizes, with something too roughly edged to be joy—and steps forward into the starlight. He’s smiling.

“I’m good,” Bucky says. “Better than good.”

He lets Steve embrace him and when he hugs back, the feeling of both of Bucky’s flesh and blood arms around him for the first time in three quarters of a century nearly breaks him. “I’m so glad,” he tells him, tightening his grip. “So damn glad for you, Buck. Wish I’d been here, is all.”

“Aw, Steve.” Bucky shakes his head. “I’m fine. I told you I needed you to go. I had to do this part on my own.”

Steve pulls back to look at him clearly and Bucky’s face goes a little dark under his inspection.

“I’m fine,” Bucky insists. “Shuri made sure they took everything out. Sure, I had to regrow a couple limbs and learn to walk again, but my head is my own. It’s all gone.”

“Oh, is that all?”

Easy as that and, despite all his good intentions, Steve’s simmering with anger. Their reunion swiftly becomes a shouting match which results in Bucky’s abrupt withdrawal with the announcement that he _can’t do this_.

“Do what?” Steve demands hotly, but he doesn’t follow. He doesn’t want to cross Bucky’s new boundaries and chase him away.

Steve sits by the edge of the lake and waits. Eventually, the sky lightens and Bucky comes out to sit by him.

“M’sorry,” Steve mumbles, leaning into his shoulder. “Did’n wan’ta fight.”

Bucky snorts at that. “First time for everything, I s’pose.”

Steve chuckles weakly. A few minutes of far more comfortable quiet pass and he asks, “So, what have you been doing out here?”

“Swimming, mostly.” Bucky puts his left arm around his shoulders and it feels as right as it ever did. “Eating my weight in fresh fruit. Figuring myself out.”

Steve tenses at the reminder of their argument but is preempted from saying anything by his stomach. He pastes on a rueful smile. “Speaking of eating…”

Bucky pulls him up as he stands. “Yeah, come on. Breakfast it is.”

 

It’s easy, in Wakanda, and specifically in this secluded setting with their only visitors being the ever-curious local children, to just let things be. Bucky has a lot to deal with right now. Steve doesn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize his faith in his ability to make the right choices.

There isn’t much room in the little house Bucky tells him is called an _indlu_ , but they’ve never needed much room. They spend their days outside in sun and open air. The unique sounds of nature in Wakanda help them orient themselves when they wake at night.

One of these nights, Steve gets up and walks around the lake before pulling out the phone with the number he gave Tony. He stares at it, thumb hovering over the call button.

He presses it. It rings.

“What.” Tony fairly barks the word, a short demand.

“It’s true,” Steve says quickly. “It’s not him, but it’s…” He doesn’t know how to explain this situation but remembers that Tony already did. “It’s his unwanted crazy. He calls the guy he sent you _the HYDRA part_. But you gotta know that guy didn’t have any more choice than—”

“Shut up, Rogers,” Tony snaps. “I don’t want to hear it.”

What can he possibly say to that? He waits, trying to breathe slowly and evenly.

“I’m keeping him at the Compound. What good is it being a billionaire if I can’t waste money on rehab and hiding dirty secrets? Vis says he’s not too far from a brain damaged android. Should be right at home here.” Tony’s words are light but his tone is bitter. “God knows what Ross would do with someone like that.”

“Thank you, Tony. It means a lot,” Steve tells him, trying to project sincerity over the line.

Tony hangs up on him.

Steve walks back to the _indlu_ and watches the sunrise with Bucky in relieved silence.

Steve isn’t conceding his points, but he has Tony’s promise Bucky’s other half is being taken care of and not turned over to Ross or the UN any time soon.

That has to be enough for now. Every time Steve prepares to bring it up, he notices some crack in Bucky’s facade of good humor and general recovery and hesitates to add more pressure.

Days pass, and then a week, two weeks.

He tries to believe that no news is good news.

 

Tony doesn’t know what to do with the super soldier he’s been gifted. Fortunately, he has money and connections and people for that. He has FRIDAY find a small army, or at least a unit, of therapists, including a physical therapist and speech therapist. He doesn’t even have to see the guy, as long as he stays non-violent. He didn’t ask for him and he wants nothing to do with him.

Once, when he can’t sleep without seeing Barnes’s face on the video or the glint of Steve’s raised shield, he brings up the camera feeds and watches the Winter Soldier.

Alone in his cell, he repeats the same set of one-handed motions over and over.

“What?” Tony mutters to himself.

“He’s signing,” FRIDAY answers anyway. “One of his therapists thinks ASL will be good for motor control and hand-eye coordination.”

Tony makes a mental note to have a talk with her about confidentiality. “What’s he saying?” Not that Tony’s much of an example.

Whatever else is going on there, the Winter Soldier isn’t stupid. He is, in fact, alarmingly smart and disturbingly focused.

“He is requesting to see his handler and receive orders,” she informs him.

“Handler?” Tony repeats, alarmed for the instant before he realizes the super soldier must be casting _him_ in that role and then even more alarmed than before. He knew his unwanted guest had identified himself as the Winter Soldier, but he thought things had been explained to him.

“I believe he means you, boss,” confirms FRIDAY.

No, Tony wants no part of this. No, no, no, no, _no_. That’s what all the therapists are for.

“Turn it off, Fri,” he tells her. He considers calling Pepper, but this sort of mess is the whole reason they’re not together now. “I’m going back to bed.”

 

It’s after another nightmare that Tony decides the video isn’t enough proof the Winter Soldier is actually contained. JARVIS might have tried to talk him out of it, but FRIDAY hasn’t learned that much yet.

Some wounds never truly heal, he thinks, rubbing at the scars on his chest as he walks toward the containment suite.

Outside the door to the suite, he pauses to call out to FRIDAY. “What’s he up to in there?”

“Sleeping, boss.”

“I’m going in,” Tony tells her. She opens the door without comment, allowing him to skip the biometric locks.

The lights are dim. Tony hasn’t been in here since that first time with Vision. The sleeping super soldier is locked in his room/cell. During the day, the Winter Soldier—the guy really needs a name and none of Barnes’ seem appropriate—has the liberty of the hallway that leads back to the containment suite’s two main rooms. He could use those rooms, but he hasn’t unless led out by one of the therapists. Tony had avoided watching his baby-steps and toddler stage. He didn’t want to see and pity. The space is empty now. Tony takes a few moments to examine the evidence of occupancy.

There isn’t much.

The shelves for food and drinks look untouched. The guy doesn’t eat anything he isn’t given directly, despite the fact Tony knows he was told he has permission. There are some mats along one side of the room, but the gym and therapy stuff is removed during the night and locked up in the same room the cryo chamber still rests in. Speaking of the cryo chamber, the guy hasn’t gone near that either.

It’s outright sad how little impact the Winter Soldier’s presence has left on this place. Depressing, actually.

Tony walks down the hallway toward the Winter Soldier’s cell. It’s one of the farthest, maybe twenty feet from the main room. “Is he still asleep, Fri?” The lights come up as he moves toward his destination.

“He woke when the door opened. He’s been standing by his bed since you entered.”

Probably at attention, waiting for his handler. He surprised by the intensity of the flash of pity.

Tony can see the door, knows it’s sealed securely, knows that there’s no reason to open it.

He stops a few feet short, trying to think. What is he doing down here? At some point between opening the outer door and examining the sparseness of the containment suite, the paranoia has ebbed, leaving behind a different type of anxiety altogether.

Clearing his throat, he says, “I’m not your handler.” There’s no response. He doesn’t even know for sure that the Winter Soldier can hear him. Getting up when the door opened could be because of vibrations through the floor or something. He hadn’t actually planned on containing a super soldier here when he’d designed the place. “No one is your handler.” The longer he stands there, waiting for what he doesn’t know, the more embarrassed he feels. Sure, he doesn’t mind the sound of his own voice, but he’s essentially talking to a wall. Tony sighs. “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. Maybe I feel sorry for you. Whatever you are, you never had a chance.” He wants to say something about his parents’ murder, but the echo of his own words stops him. The super soldier might identify himself as _the_ Winter Soldier, but he’d seen for himself that there hadn’t been only one and he doesn’t know if… He doesn’t know.

“Forget I said anything,” he mutters to himself and turns to walk away.

A muffled metallic squeal cuts the silence between his footsteps.

“FRIDAY?” Tony demands, wide awake and wishing he’d brought something more substantial than sleepwear.

“He’s prying at the remains of his metal shoulder,” she reports. There’s urgency in her voice. “I think he…”

“Can you knock him out?”

“I’m trying!”

An Iron Man gauntlet comes zooming down the hallway toward him. He raises his hand to allow it to attach.

“ _Fri?_ ”

“He’s fighting the sedative.”

He thinks, but only of what and how instead of why. “Clear the air and open the door,” he says tensely.

Later, he tells himself he did it because if this guy gets hurt on Tony’s watch, he’ll be worse than back to square one with Steve. Because he’s already trying to get Barnes and the rogue Avengers cleared and reinstated, no matter how he feels, and he’s already putting his neck out for the super soldier behind the door, so why not?

But as he studies the unconscious super soldier, the face of his mother’s killer, most of what he feels is a churning in his gut that he refuses to label.

 

“Hey, Winter,” says a voice. The voice is familiar.

The Asset opens its eyes immediately and winces involuntarily at the harshness of the light.

“Can I call you Winter? Winnie? I’m calling you Winter.”

The voice belongs to its handler. The relief is so strong the Asset almost shows the emotion with a sob. Instead, it forces its eyes to open and unfocus to its handler’s right. It does not attempt to rise. The sensation of restraint is comforting in its familiarity.

It has been twenty-three days by its best estimation since the Asset came out of cryo. The handler who woke it has not been to see it since that time. At first, it was not significantly perturbed; it fell at his feet, after all, proving itself damaged and useless. Later, after the trainers and doctors came and it regained much of its strength, the lack of missions or so much as a direct order from its handler began to bother it.

“Yes, sir,” it acknowledges gratefully. Its handler has not given up on it! “Designation ‘Winter’ accepted.” It dares a glance at the man’s face to check his reaction.

He appears… upset.

The Asset braces itself, quickly removing its gaze. All this time and the first thing it does is displease its handler again. Maybe it should not have spoken. Maybe _Winter_ should not have spoken.

Its handler says nothing for a long time. Winter tries to think. It knows it is not very good at thinking outside the context of a mission. It has been told so many times. Unfortunately, although thinking is a mistake, it needs to understand how to please this handler.

"Were you trying to hurt yourself?" its handler asks.

Winter’s breath freezes in its chest as the handler hastily adds, "Because that's not okay, buddy."

"I wouldn't!" Winter blurts, desperate now and relieved when the words come out as intended. "Self-harm is noncompliant." It knows better. Oh, how it knows better.

"Then what were you trying to do, Winter?"

"I… don't remember," it admits. That happens a lot when it lets emotions carry it away. It happens less often now than Winter thinks it remembers. It hasn't been taken to the chair once since it woke from cryo. There used to be more in its head. Flickers and flashes of things that gnawed at it and disrupted its programming until it became erratic and unstable. Violent. Dangerous.

Winter has never been out of cryo this long without feeling the inevitable oncoming breakdown.

“Ready to comply,” it offers.

Its handler makes a noise before standing abruptly and walking out.

Winter stares longingly after him.

 

Winter's therapy team is understandably upset when they arrive to find their patient restrained and demoralized. FRIDAY passes on the request that Tony return to avoiding the containment suite.

He doesn't respond to them, but he doesn't go back either. He'd known it was a mistake before he'd made it.

The next week brings a few developments in the new prosthetics branch of Stark industries, far too many updates about the rogue Avengers' legal status, and another awkward phone call from Rogers.

Sometimes, it's hard to remember why Tony took it all on. Pepper had a point. Sometimes, it’s not good for him and he knows it.

When Rogers asks about Winter, he does so hesitantly, lowering his voice like the reminder of the whole damn mess will be any easier that way.

Tony informs him of their second-ever conversation.

“You’re not calling him Winnie,” says Rogers, aghast, even quieter. “That was Bucky’s _mother’s_ name.”

Tony tries to bite his tongue. Mothers are more than a sore spot.

“So, what’s Elsa got to say about it?” Tony bursts, figuring he might as well rip away the padding and get to the bones of the thing. “Winter was made out of him. It could be a Barnes family name. Doesn’t seem like a Charles, Edward, George, or Henry.”

“Tony, Buck’s _da_ was a George…” Rogers interjects.

Tony goes on. “Well, he’s definitely not an Elizabeth or Ann or John. What does Barnes call him, anyway?”

Steve sighs. “I haven’t... He’s not... We haven’t...”

Apparently, Rogers still hasn’t learned to be honest about things he doesn’t want to talk about.

Nice to know it’s not all personal.

Tony hangs up on him. The snap of the phone’s cover is satisfying, even if he can never admit that to anyone. Making tools out of mammoth tusks was probably satisfying too.

 

The physical and speech therapists reduce their appointments with Winter first to every other day, then to Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and finally to twice a month. The psych one isn’t making much headway. There’s nothing under the programmed personality, if what Winter has can even be called a personality.

The new name was initially considered a breakthrough. The excitement vanished as soon as Winter made sure they understood that Tony had given him the name because _it would not presume to name itself._ And seriously? The guy has been calling himself ‘ _it‘_ this whole time? That’s even more fucked up than Tony imagined, and no one can say he’s not known for his creativity. “Uh, FRIDAY? What the hell is this?” Tony asks, reviewing the latest request from Winter’s treatment team. “I thought they didn’t want me anywhere near him?”

“Dr. Ornelas believes Winter will make more progress breaking his conditioning with the perceived approval of a handler.”

He makes a face. “I can see that, Fri. But what gives? Last time I tried something like that, the guy tried to tattle to HYDRA.” The one thing Tony had wanted to know was why the terminator had been clawing at his metal shoulder. Apparently, there had been trackers that could have been activated by sufficient damage to the prosthetic. They’d been removed sometime between Siberia and now, but Winter hadn’t known.

“I think it could help him, boss.”

Tony blinks, frowning. “Why?”

“Winter doesn’t ask a lot of questions, except to clarify instructions or procedural steps, but the questions he does ask are a lot like mine when I came online after Ultron. He acts like a highly restricted learning program without the assistance of a supportive creator.”

There is no judgement in FRIDAY’s voice, but Tony winces at the memory of what he’d done to her code back then. Since she’s grown enough to develop some level of conscience and social skills, he’s given her more freedom. He feels bad about it nonetheless. He hadn’t constrained JARVIS like that. “You think he’s like a new AI? Wait, have you been talking to him? Sweetiepie, do we need to have the stranger danger talk?”

“He’s perfectly polite. I assess Winter’s threat level as lower than DUM-E’s.”

“Uh... HYDRA assassin?”

“I’m not inviting him to play with my code, Boss.” She actually sounds affronted. “He’s contained. But he’s also cooperative.”

With a flick of his fingers, Tony brings the containment feed up to study Winter. “Too cooperative. What are you suggesting? I can’t exactly install him in the workshop.”

 

“Please,” Winter begs, “A mission. A task. Orders. Anything, sir.”

“Fine. I can find something for you to do,” he says and Winter relaxes.

So much for not installing Winter in his workshop.

 

“You what?” Steve blurts, interrupting Stark’s rapidfire rambling about the growing smoothie-making rivalry between DUM-E and Winter.

“No, really, he’s not half-bad. Much less likely to feed me industrial lubricants, for one thing. Weird ideas about flavor combinations, but he’s never had his own taste buds before, so—”

“You’re giving him the run of your workshop?” Steve repeats. “You didn’t even give Bruce—”

Stark cuts him off, voice cooling, and Steve knows he’s stepped in it. “He always asks permission before touching anything I haven’t explicitly allowed before and he doesn’t have a personal agenda other than staying out of containment and keeping busy. He’s like a spare hand. Sometimes I even forget he’s there. More than I can say for any of _you_.”

“Tony, I…”

“I keep sentry armors active,” he bites out. “I’m not an idiot. FRIDAY has my back.”

“But you don’t think you need them,” Steve says. “I’m… I’m glad.”

“Oh, goody. Steve Rogers’ seal of approval. What I always wanted.”

There’s an awkward pause while Steve fails to think of a decent response.

“Sir?” The voice is faint. And familiar. “I finished—”

There’s a loud rasping crackling sound followed by Tony, muffled. “Winter? Oh, thanks—hey! DUM-E! Come back with that! Butterfingers, no!” What might be a crash involving one or more bots nearly drowns out the quick, “Shit. Gotta go.”

Dial tone.

 

“He sounds a little like you,” Steve tells Bucky, later.

Bucky rolls over and buries his head under a couple of pillows, mumbling something indistinct.

Steve pokes him in the side with a finger until he starts to squirm. “Buuuuucky,” he sing-songs. “Buuuuucky!”

The other super soldier bats his hand away with a pillow. “Jeez. What are you, five?”

Grinning, Steve says, “If that’s what it takes to get you to talk.”

Scowling like _he’s_ a sulky five year old, Bucky says, “I don’t wanna talk about it. You know that.”

“Buck.”

Bucky sighs heavily. “As long as the Winter Soldier isn’t killing people, I don’t care. _I don’t want to talk about it, Steve._ Stop tryin’ ta make me.”

“Fine,” Steve concedes. He’ll try again sometime his friend is in a better mood.

 

At some point, there will have to be an explanation for Winter beyond Science Did It. Ross, either Ross, would love to get their hands on him. He hasn’t even told Rhodey because he doesn’t want to put him in the position of choosing between Tony and his career again. Winter has knowledge to make himself almost as dangerous as the old Winter Soldier and Tony knows intimately how far some people will go to get the best weapons.

It might have something to do with the pain in Tony’s chest when he remembers why Winter’s left shoulder ends in capped wires. Around the same time, Tony started to admit that he really was designing a new arm for Winter because, if Winter was going to be another pair of hands in the workshop, he should have another hand.

He started thinking about how to protect him before he ever finished defrosting. Now, he needs to think about Winter’s ability to protect _himself_.

Winter has taken up training without his physical therapist figuratively holding his hand. He’s working his way up to the same type of regimen Steve had, minus all the unnecessary running and substituting the same types of exercises Natasha used to maintain her Thighs of Death. Which is quite a sight, but Tony isn’t going there.

The gear the Winter Soldier wore during the fall of SHIELD had been found at the bank in DC, sodden, filthy, and abandoned like a sloughed off skin. Steve, because he was a sentimental idiot, had taken it home with him, cleaned it up, and repaired it as best as he could.

“Soooo, I was thinking,” Tony says to the former Winter Soldier as he works on the schematics of Winter’s new arm. Winter has been watching him with wide eyes and open fascination, but Tony focuses on the work in front of him now so he won’t see any reaction. “You’re not doing combat missions, but you’re you and Avengers-adjacent, so maybe we should see about some kind of body armor for you? I mean, in case we get attacked here and you have to defend yourself?”

“Or you.”

“Huh?” Tony turns from his hologram to see Winter looking determined, his only hand in a loose fist at his side.

“Or you. I would defend you.”

Tony can’t help the rush of warmth that suffuses him. When was the last time someone actually said those words to him?

“Yeah, sure,” he says quickly and moves on. “So, Rogers has the old Winter Soldier stuff moldering in his closet or something, but I know we can do better.”

“I don’t understand.” Winter is doing the blink and head tilt combination again. He’s too adorable with the hair he’s been growing out flopping into his eyes. He looks fluffy and sharp now instead of disturbing and vulnerable. Like a big kitten. His hair is growing about three times faster than humanly possible. Tony raised the idea of cutting it a few weeks ago. Winter never brought it up again, however, so he let it drop. “Why?”

It’s Tony’s turn to blink. He refocuses. “Why does Rogers do anything?” he asks, flippantly.

“Sentiment,” says Winter, not taking it as a joke. “Sentiment, pride, and anger. He has a lot of anger. From what I understand,” he adds hurriedly. “I don’t remember him at all.”

How weird is that for him? Does he ever resent that Bucky Barnes got all the Steve memories?

Tony huffs. “Seems about right to me.”

When Winter tilts his head, the hair which has grown almost to his ears flops over his eyes again. “It was comfortable?”

This is how Winter ends up in possession of the old HYDRA gear.

It doesn’t quite fit, but Winter knows how to condition it, how to tighten and expand the sections with straps and buckles, and Tony’s startled when he goes to collect Winter from the obstacle course he’s set up to find him wearing the old armor and studying himself in the mirror of an adjoining bathroom.

Tony nearly has a panic attack. Then, Winter brushes the hair out of his eyes with his only hand and suddenly it’s only Winter playing dress-up in his sort-of-predecessor’s clothes.

Winter turns to him slowly. “It’s… heavy.” He frowns and head-tilt-blinks down at himself. A faintly embarrassed smile flickers on his lips. “It… chafes a little. I didn’t remember that.”

Tony coughs a laugh, relieved. “Yeah, we can definitely improve that. Come on, sugarflake, I’ve got some material samples for you to play with.” He has to leave the bathroom in a hurry then because Winter has yet to learn any real modesty.

 

Bucky bites his tongue when Steve comes back from one of his calls to Tony Stark. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to know.

 

Winter makes an even better assistant with both hands. Early one morning, they're in the workshop and Winter is giving input on a project in development for Stark Industries: a mass market Stark Watchlet based on Tony's repulsor bracelets and the Starkphone. Instead of a repulsor, users can generate holograms from their palms with most of the same functionality as the latest Starkphone screens.

Unfortunately, all his testers so far insist the transformation is too scary for the product to sell. Most people aren't used to metal moving like that against their skin. It also has to be customized for each user's measurements, which Tony hadn't considered at first because he makes new repulsor bracelets for himself so often it hasn't been an issue for him and once he figures out how to get the nanotech to do what he wants, it will never be an issue again.

Winter fits Tony’s newest watchlet prototype to his right wrist, takes a deep breath, triggers the transformation, and rips it off before it even finishes, looking unsettled.

“Okay, cupcake,” Tony sighs, “tell me what’s wrong with that one.”

The super soldier ignores the new nickname, frowning as he turns the bracelet over in his hands. “It tickles."

Tony holds out a hand. When did he start trusting Winter to hand him things? “Fine. Give it here, then. I’m going to figure this out, just you wait.”

His new favorite lab assistant hands over the prototype.

“Tony,” Winter says, noticing the time. “When did you last sleep?”

Sleep? Tony makes a face. The closer clemency for the rogue Avengers grows, the worse his nightmares have become. Sleep is for the weak and easily distracted, he'd say, but Winter hasn't lived in real time or considered himself a person for very long and he's trying to be a better example for all the developing minds that spend so much time with him. "I'll sleep later,” he promises. Winter is smart, really smart, but he doesn't always understand when Tony is being flippant and doesn't really mean what he says. It took years for FRIDAY to learn when not to take him seriously.

“Sleep is essential self-maintenance for human bodies,” insists Winter. "We should both go sleep."

"What, together, Winnie-pooh?" On reflex, he flashes Winter a grin he doesn't feel.

Winter crosses his arms, freshly polished silver plates overlapping flesh that didn't exist six months ago, and simply looks at him.

A sinking feeling warns Tony his tease is about to backfire. He knew better than that with Winter only seconds ago.

"Would that help you to sleep? I don't remember sleeping with anyone. I can, if you want. FRIDAY says you need taking care of."

"Um. No." Tony backpedals, waving his arms between them. He can't tell if Winter even knows what those words imply. "That's, that's really not necessary."

"Okay, Tony," says Winter. His arms return to his sides. Tony thinks he must have forgotten to animate his face because there's no way he's disappointed.

 

It’s a year and a half after the mess that became of the signing of the Accords and about ten months since Bucky came out of cryo when Tony arranges conditions for the rogue Avengers to return. They aren’t pardoned—yet, sentences deferred, or maybe reduced to community service. World service? Something like that. They’re restricted to the compound except on official Avengers business. Tony feels… a lot about that. He would like to say he’s not bitter, but he is. He can’t think about those nightmarish days immediately after General Ross brought them together the last time over the Accords without starting to shake a little. It makes him sick, what happened, what they’ve done to each other. What he did to Bucky. What Steve almost did.

Winter, who isn’t robotic or dead-eyed or homicidal or even resentful of the conditions of his own freedom, both more and less restricted than the other super soldiers, is a constant reminder and proof that Steve had been right all along, about Bucky, at least. He isn’t the Winter Soldier that Bucky Barnes used to be, but the Winter Soldier of Tony’s nightmares never existed as a person anyway. Winter trains now because he wants to be in full control of his body, but he would rather be in the workshop with Tony than lurk in a dark corner or spill anyone’s blood. Sometime in the last couple months, he started calling Tony by his name instead of the titles appropriate for a handler or superior. He’s developed a strong stubborn streak, especially when it comes to Tony’s health, that Tony would like to blame on FRIDAY, if only because he would like to forget anyone with that face existed before last year.

Tony thought Winter was like Steve at first, almost totally lacking in modern culture and surprisingly stubborn and sneaky as hell, but that’s not right. Steve resisted the present, while Winter is endlessly curious. Winter wants to learn and to be part of time, this time, and the future that Tony knows is coming, for better or ill. Winter wants to _live_. Maybe Steve does now too, but they aren’t the same at all.

That curiosity in Winter, that willingness to learn and explore and listen, slowly fills in a gaping wound in Tony’s soul that only Rhodey had ever truly begun to heal before.

He nearly laughs himself sick one night when he realizes he’s developed _another_ issue with Steve Rogers. Winter is the kind of person he wishes he’d had as a friend growing up and, if Winter is anything like Bucky was growing up, Tony is jealous all over again.

He consoles himself with the thought that it doesn’t matter; he has Winter now.

Winter is interested in math and science, and it isn’t for Tony’s sake. His knowledge is patchy. He understands a surprising amount about his own physical capabilities, including his new body parts. He understands almost everything about his new prosthetic, even if he only knows many terms in Russian or German. He knows biology and physics and enough chemistry and engineering to make a radio, GPS beacon, or various types of bombs, from scratch. He could repair his old prosthetic in the field, which explains how Bucky Barnes kept it operational without regular maintenance from HYDRA.

 

“Do you think they’ll like me?” Winter asks Tony. He’s dressed in a Winter Soldier Halloween costume with a plastic shell over his real prosthetic because Tony is a masochist and the party they’re crashing is Come As You’re Not.

“They won’t have a clue who you are,” Tony tells him, baffled. He’s wearing a Captain America costume with a one dollar plastic mask meant to look like the old cartoon because Tony is a masochist and neither of them stand out this way. It’s Winter’s first time around people who don’t know anything about him, even if it’s only a Stark Industries employee costume party.

Winter drops his gaze, pale eyelids startling in the midst of the black paint. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Holy shit,” gasps a woman dressed as Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad. It’s not a bad costume. She raises a hand in front of Winter, who studies it warily before touching his right palm to hers in the world’s most calculated high-five. “You look exactly like the DC footage. I mean, the arm is obviously fake, but it’s a good thing Mr. Stark won’t be here tonight or he’d have to arrest you to be on the safe side. Wow. Can I take a selfie with you and Cap? My friends on Twitter need to see this.”

Okay, so this was a very bad idea. Winter looks to Tony, clearly overwhelmed.

“Uh, sorry. We were about to leave and the costumes aren’t ours, so maybe you shouldn’t post about us,” Tony says quickly.

“I’m not comfortable with being on social media,” says Winter, regaining his conversational footing.

It occurs to him later that Winter didn’t mean the people at the party. He’d been looking at Tony’s costume.

 

“Hey, Steve?” Tony asks, on one of their final calls before Steve and Bucky leave Wakanda.

Steve is actually packing while they speak. His flip phone is on speaker atop the bag Bucky already packed.

“Yeah?” He pauses in the middle of rolling up another shirt.

“What was Bucky like as a kid?” Tony blurts it out, like he’s trying not to ask, and Steve blinks stupidly at the half-rolled T-shirt in his hands.

“Uh,” he stalls, and ducks his head out the door to scan for Bucky. Satisfied their conversation is private, he sits down with the phone and takes it off speaker.

“Still there?” Tony demands.

“Yeah. Yeah, I…” Steve clears his throat. “He was… He was always real bright. Curious. A real math whiz. Spent all he could spare on science fiction mags. Came home one day his last year of school raving about geometry and how he was gonna be an architect and build houses on the moon or Mars. But that was, you know, the ‘30s. His parents wanted him to study engineering because it was one of the only professions that stayed steady during the Depression.” He doesn’t want to remember the fight Bucky had had with his parents about his college plans.

Tony makes a distracted noise and Steve wonders if he heard half of what Steve said.

“Tony?” Steve says and decides he’s right when Tony makes a startled sound.

“Yeah,” he says and hangs up.

It’s sort of become a thing, Tony hanging up on him. In the past, Steve would have been a little upset or at least offended. Now, Tony’s abrupt changes of focus provoke fondness instead.

 

Rather than worry about how Steve Rogers and James Barnes will react to whatever he is now, Winter throws himself into designing living space for the new additions. Scott Lang and James Barnes have never been Avengers before and Lang, Barton, and Wilson’s families need somewhere to stay when they visit.

“Do you think Scott Lang would like a Baskin Robbins poster? He applied to work there in—”

“I doubt it, Winter,” FRIDAY says in the tone that Winter knows means she’s being gentle with him. “He wasn’t there long and I suspect he only applied out of desperation.”

Winter blinks and tilts his head. He knows this is a habit from trying to ask questions without speaking and while wearing a mask. According to Tony, he looks like an adorable kitten when he does it. Winter has not attempted to modify this behavior.

“He was new out of prison and needed money. It is unlikely Baskin Robbins has any sentimental meaning for him.”

That explanation makes sense. Winter sometimes forgets about money, except in the abstract sense of knowing that people may be motivated by sufficient quantities. Winter has never had any personal use for it. He nods to tell FRIDAY that he understands and goes back to flicking through options for wall decorations.

“He changes size. What about miniature furniture or a dollhouse he can share with his child?”

Tony’s laugh echoes across the room. Winter smiles in response.

“Yes!” Tony tells him. “You should absolutely do that, snowpuff. You can make it pink and white with a little mechanical pony she can put him on. I’ll help you with the pony.”

Uncertain, Winter looks for a hint that Tony might not be serious.

“Ignore Boss,” FRIDAY advises. “You can do that next year, for his daughter’s birthday.”

Winter nods again. “This would be a… gag gift?” He understands those. Sometimes HYDRA agents gave each other gag gifts. They were gifts that required tolerance on the part of the recipient in addition to some degree of fondness. Winter has not earned that tolerance from Scott Lang. He has earned fondness from no one outside this room and his therapists.

“Yes, Winter,” confirms FRIDAY and Tony reluctantly agrees.

“Maybe a collection of his daughter’s photos?” Winter suggests.

“Mildly creepy, but not a bad idea,” Tony calls. “Fri, find him publicly available images only.”

“Got it, Boss.”

The air fills with pictures of Cassie Lang at various ages. Winter removes a handful he deems poorer quality.

Tony grunts with exertion, curses, and then hisses in pain. There’s a dull ringing clunk as something heavy and metallic hits the floor of the workshop.

Winter abandons his station to go see if he can help. Tony is his priority.

 

It’s halfway through November when the rogue Avengers, rogue no more, are delivered to the Compound.

Tony chooses not to greet them.

Instead, he and FRIDAY and the bots sequester themselves up in his workshop. Tony isn’t the only one with mixed feelings about the Avengers’ presence. To his mild surprise, Winter, who had been openly curious about the other super soldiers in particular, joins them. Winter has taken to building and manipulating 3D holographic models like a graduate student to coffee. FRIDAY could do the same work, but Winter enjoys it so much she can’t be upset about having some of her processing power freed up for other things.

No one else needs to know that Winter will design their first group training course. The idea isn’t Tony’s. Winter can be quietly sneaky. It will be a good test of their willingness to work with Tony again or trust Winter at all.

 

Winter doesn’t think he ever wants the new arrivals to know he planned their living space. That might prompt someone to ask about his own space because it doesn’t exist. Tony may not have actually noticed, but they are essentially living together. The former Asset knows to keep his advantages to himself when he can and he has yet to see any indication that Tony minds. If drawing attention to the fact would make it change, he will not draw attention to it for as long as possible.

Not because he fears a handler’s displeasure, but because he doesn’t want whatever Tony Stark is to him now to become uncomfortable. It didn’t take long for him to identify Tony’s self-punishing behavior and Winter has no desire for their relationship to become collateral damage if Tony convinces himself he can’t have what Winter wants to give him.

The trouble is, Winter wants to give Tony everything. Not because he owes Tony—although he does: his life, his freedom, his arm, and his new existence as an almost-human autonomous person—but because Tony was frightened, angry, and resentful when they met, and still he was kind and generous and patient. Winter doesn’t remember as much as he _knows_ that no one with so much power over the Asset ever sought less power.

FRIDAY and the bots have been good examples. Tony gave him the tools to make himself.

If an entity as simple as DUM-E can have likes, dislikes, quirks and malfunctions and be worth affection, surely a program as sophisticated as the Asset can too? And now, the Asset is Winter and Winter is a person. If FRIDAY, another sophisticated program who is also a person, says she loves Tony, then maybe Winter can do that too.

It’s fine if Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers can’t tolerate him. They are welcome to each other’s company. Winter has Tony.

 

When Tony finally decides that they’ve been holed up long enough and if he doesn’t show his face soon, nothing can get better because he and Steve will both doubt the progress they made over the phone, he has backup.

“I’m coming with you,” Winter states. There is no question in this announcement and Tony is so proud of how far he’s come and so grateful that he won’t be alone that his chest and throat hurt with it.

Tony dithers over what to wear longer than he ever did for any date. In the end, he decides that screw it, he’s not changing a damn thing for them. They’ll take him with the t-shirt and jeans he’s worn for two days and stained with ketchup, machine oil, the dust of metal shavings, and the questionable chlorophyll smoothie DUM-E dropped in his lap. He has been going over Winter’s arm as a sort of calming exercise for both of them, so Winter has to go find a shirt, but that shouldn’t take long.

It shouldn’t.

Winter reappears wearing the old Winter Soldier outfit Tony hasn’t seen since before they put his new arm on. That, plus the hair which is now down past his chin, and it takes Tony a minute to steady his breathing and calm his racing heart.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Winter says, contrite. “I can—”

“No! It’s—it’s fine.” He musters a smile from somewhere. “Ready?”

Winter gives him a short sharp nod like they’re about to go to battle. “If they hurt you again,” Winter says, flat and deadly in a way Tony doesn’t remember ever seeing from him, “they will find out exactly how much of the Winter Soldier is left in me.”

Tony doesn’t know what to say to that. Thank you doesn’t seem appropriate. He nods back instead.

It’s time.

 

Bucky is nervous. It’s understandable. Last time he saw Tony Stark, he, they, well, the less he thinks of that, the better, probably.

“Buck, listen,” Steve is saying, “we really oughta talk about—”

“No, Steve,” Bucky repeats firmly. The last thing he wants to be thinking about right now is anything to do with the Winter Soldier, not when Howard’s son has asked to talk to them.

He’s not ready for this. He’s never going to be ready for this.

Then he sees the shape slipping through the door after Tony Stark and sees red. "What the hell is _that thing_ doing here?”

The Winter Soldier half-flinches before taking on an unsettlingly familiar readiness. It might not be wearing the mask, but Bucky knows that blank calculation. He’s faced other Winter Soldiers before and it doesn’t matter that they looked like different people or that Bucky is the one with two flesh and blood arms now. The Winter Soldier steps in front of Tony Stark and Bucky is moving forward without any consideration of what comes next.

"Buck!" Steve cries, grabbing for him.

Bucky doesn't bother trying to shake him off. He can break Steve's hold without much effort if he has to. That skill has been part of him since the 1920s. He could do it when Steve was a scrawny kid—they both had been scrawny kids at that point—and just as easily when his friend became a scrawny man and then a super soldier.

"Whoa!" exclaims Tony Stark. Eyes wide, he takes a step forward and puts an arm out as a barrier. "That's a person you're talking about. He's not a thing any more than you are. Tell me you understand that or this will get uncomfortable fast."

The Winter Soldier pulls a knife from its tac gear as it sweeps Tony’s arm aside with its forearm and puts itself between them again. “Tony,” it says quietly, utterly focused on Bucky. “Step back.”

“Uh, no?” He tries to insert himself between them again. “How about you both stand down instead? This is supposed to be a friendly conversation, right Capsicle?”

“Right,” says Steve. “Bucky…”

With a frustrated noise, the Winter Soldier pushes Tony back behind it. Why would it do that? What’s its objective here?

“It’s armed, Steve,” he says, unwilling to be moved.

“He’s not an it!” Tony snaps. “Look, it’s clear we’re getting off on the wrong foot again and none of us wanted that a minute ago. How about we all put down the weapons…” He puts his hands on the Winter Soldier’s shoulders and slowly slides his right down the Winter Soldier’s arm to its wrist.

How is he doing that? A handler would have been gutted for that, he’s sure. He remembers turning on them.

“No one needs to get hurt. This doesn’t have to end in a fight.”

“It always ends in a fight,” Bucky says in unison with the Winter Soldier, locking eyes.

“Tony, please,” whispers the Winter Soldier.

The other hand goes to the back of its neck, under the edge of its hair. “It’s okay, Winter. Steve and I won’t let anyone get hurt, right, Mr. Rogers? It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”

“Tony’s right,” Steve says. “We’re friends here. And yes, Tony, you can make that my ringtone for you.”

Bucky stares, frozen with his fists up and ready. Steve’s holding him back by his upper arms, but he’s not trying to move forward now.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Tony mutters.

The Winter Soldier lets Tony take the knife. _It lets him take the knife._

Behind him, Steve breathes. His hands move from holding Bucky back to encircling his chest to hold him close.

The knife disappears into Tony’s jeans, but the other hand stays on the Winter Soldier’s neck. “See? We’re fine. Not bad for your totally unexpected first encounter with someone hostile.”

It nods.

Bucky doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. The Winter Soldier isn’t like this.

Tony drops his hand. “Steve? Can I talk to you?”

“Outside, yeah. Let’s give these two their space,” Steve agrees, the traitor, and abruptly it’s just the two of them.

Eventually, grudgingly, Bucky is the one to break the silence. "What do you call yourself?"

"I’m a person and my name is Winter," the Winter Soldier bites out, glaring.

“Does that make your last name Soldier?”

The glare intensifies. “No. Unnecessary. Otherwise, I’d prefer Stark.”

Bucky recoils. “Does he know that?”

“You won’t tell him.”

“That you have preferences?”

“He knows I’m a person. Pronouns he, him.”

“How?” Bucky wishes there was furniture for them to sit. “How are you a person? Wait, you’re not me, right? They didn’t really make two of me?”

The… Winter opens his mouth, closes his mouth, and walks to the door it… he and Tony had entered from. They’d chosen a room with multiple exits for good reason. “I’m glad I have a new brain. Yours doesn’t seem to work correctly.”

“Excuse me?” Bucky demands, incredulous. He knows his brain is messed up. That’s what happens after the life he’s had.

“Come with me,” Winter says. “I think I know what you need.”

Then he’s through the door and Bucky has no excuse not to follow.

 

“FRIDAY,” says Winter. His skin prickles under James Barnes’ focus as he tells her what he needs.

They reach the Containment suite Winter hasn’t slept in for months. The door opens to his right palm print and it occurs to him to wonder if it would open for the man behind him too. It doesn’t matter unless FRIDAY goes offline for some reason.

“Hello, Winter,” says Dr. Ornelas. “FRIDAY showed me what happened. Do you want to talk privately or are we including your guest?”

 

“I feel disappointed,” Winter says clearly, “when you refer to me with ‘it’ pronouns because I worked hard to be a person and I would like very much for you to support my efforts.”

Bucky stares at him. Clearly, he wasn’t expecting to have to talk. Winter doesn’t understand how he can have any functional relationships with that attitude. The only thing he’s done so far is tell them his preferred form of address and his pronouns.

“Bucky?” prompts Dr. Ornelas.

“I feel upset because you exist,” Bucky says.

 

Steve is about at his wits end with Bucky’s unwillingness to talk to or about Winter. It’s not like he doesn’t understand why, but it’s not like Winter has done anything to earn Bucky’s glares except exist.

For his part, Steve has been repairing his relationship with Tony as much as he can. It won’t ever be the same as before, but they hadn’t been close. Now that he has Bucky again and Tony has Winter, it’s obvious that they had never really let down their guard with each other.

He’d like to do better now. Unfortunately, Tony and Winter appear to be a package deal the way that he and Bucky are again and Bucky can’t stand Winter.

“I know, Steve,” Bucky grouses. “I’ll stay here. You can go have your get together without me. It’s not like anyone needs me there. Tony can spend the whole time singing Winter’s praises and you won’t have to tell me not to look at him funny.”

Steve sighs. It’s no good. He can have Tony or Bucky, but he hardly recognizes Bucky when Winter tries to interact with them. Why hadn’t he pushed harder while they were half a world away in Wakanda?

“It’s not like that,” Steve tells him. “You haven’t given him a chance. Winter wants to get to know you. You haven’t met Colonel Rhodes or Vision except…” He doesn’t finish that sentence. The last thing he needs is to put Bucky more on edge. “Tony wants to meet you again. You two can start over. You’re both sorry. Why can’t you try?”

There’s no answer. Bucky simply shakes his head and retreats to his own quarters.

If only they were living together here too. They couldn’t avoid each other then.

“FRIDAY?” Steve says to his empty room. “I need to talk to Winter. Alone, if possible. I’m not making any progress on this end.”

FRIDAY is slower to answer him than she ever was before the Accords and Steve knows it’s not because she’s grown less capable.

“Winter is in the Containment gym, Mr. Rogers.”

“Will he talk to me?” Is it his imagination or is the silence hostile?

“Yes,” says FRIDAY. “Alone.”

 

“What should I call you?” Winter asks. “Bucky won’t like me calling you Steve.”

Steve sighs. “I know. I’d like to say he’ll get over it, but he’s always been good at holding grudges when he wants.”

“I tried to introduce him to my psychiatrist,” Winter says. “He needs help.”

“We didn’t exactly talk about this stuff back in the ‘40s, Winter,” Steve explains weakly.

Winter blinks and tilts his head. Steve kind of wants to ruffle his hair up like he and Bucky used to do to each other. “You had this stuff back in the ‘40s?”

“Good point,” says Steve. “And call me Steve anyway.”

Winter nods. “Thank you, Steve.” He pauses. “Tony is not my handler. I don’t have a handler. I needed help to change my thinking. Tony found people to help me.”

“Buck and I didn’t talk to anyone before,” Steve says, but he isn’t protesting.

“Welcome to the present,” says Winter. “You can make it a New Year’s resolution to fix.”

Steve marvels at him. “You sound like Tony.”

Winter smiles bashfully. “Tony used to tell me I sounded like you.”

Steve’s cheeks heat. “Is that a good thing?”

“Yes, Steve,” Winter promises. “Is it good that I sound like Tony?”

“Yeah,” Steve says and means it. “I mean, he talks about you a lot, but you’re not what I expected.”

“Bucky can’t see me,” Winter says sadly. “I wish he would try.”

 

It’s kind of funny how easily everything else falls into place once Steve and Tony start planning team bonding and training with the specific goal of getting Bucky and Winter together. All those months of communication and Tony and Steve are good at the co-leadership thing. Barton and Lang are so busy making things up to their kids and their mothers that they have no energy left to make trouble. Wanda and Vision act like they might be sweethearts, and Wilson doesn’t have to play mediator. They actually strike fewer sparks off each other now that Bucky’s focused on Winter.

Bucky hates Winter. He wanted HYDRA’s programming gone. Now he has to look it in the face whenever the team leaders decide to include him.

“I’m not an Avenger,” Winter protests the first time, arriving at the hangar with a set of black and gray combat gear slung over his left shoulder, unmarked silver plates flashing golden in the afternoon sun. He looks like he belongs there.

Bucky, in dark blue and dark brown, glares murder as he voices his agreement.

“See?” Tony beams, gesturing at them. “You two are getting along already!”

Team dinners are tense, but Steve is stubborn and Tony is persistent. It’s nice to see them work together toward a common goal. Bucky knows Steve feels good about what they’re doing. He only wishes Steve would leave this part alone. If Winter’s not part of the team, what does it matter if Bucky wants to never see his stupid identical face again? He doesn’t need the therapist Steve drags him to talk to to tell him he’s not being fair. The world isn’t fair. Bucky doesn’t want to be fair.

“Can you pass me the salt?” Bucky asks. Winter slides it down the table before Steve or Tony, sitting between them, have a chance.

“Thanks,” Bucky grumbles because he has manners even when he wants to put a steak knife through someone’s throat and he won’t be outdone by _Winter_.

Winter offers him a brightly uncertain smile. “You are welcome.”

 

It is only a matter of time before Winter wears down Bucky’s resistance. He does it in the same way he approached Tony, with gifts and little acts of service.

Winter had needed kindness when he came out of cryo here. Bucky needs kindness now. It’s not Winter’s fault that he exists. If anything, it’s Bucky’s. If Winter can break his programming and _live_ , there must have been a way for Bucky to do the same without making and abandoning a whole new person in the process.

Okay, maybe Winter has a few resentments of his own. That’s natural. Dr. Ornelas says so. As long as he doesn’t take them out on Bucky, they aren’t a problem.

He prefers to focus on success.

The first time Bucky accepts one of the water bottles Winter hands out after a training session, for example, straight from his hand. The first time Bucky doesn’t switch chairs when Winter sits by him. The first time Bucky asks his opinion in a non-hostile tone. The first time Bucky picks up a science magazine Winter ordered for him. The first time Bucky agrees with his movie suggestion. The first time Bucky smiles back at him.

The first time Bucky voluntarily comes to Tony’s workshop and asks questions. The first time the three of them work together on something.

“I knew you’d be good at this, Buckybear!” Tony crows as their tiny robot pony starts to walk along the edge of a workbench.

Winter smiles. Bucky smiles back.

 

Bucky spends as much time in the workshop as he does training these days. They’re past the awkwardness. They talk, really talk, one night when nightmares drive all four of them to a hot chocolate binge at three in the morning. Winter follows on Tony’s heels as he makes his way to the Avengers’ kitchen. He would have stayed in their own, but he knows Tony needed to get away from the nightmare. Winter knows what Tony’s nightmares show him. No doubt he’s hoping they might run into someone to share a cup with and prove they’re alive.

Steve and Bucky are already there, pawing through the cupboards. They smile sympathetically in greeting.

“You wanna watch something?” Bucky asks.

“Blue Planet,” Winter requests.

FRIDAY pauses the documentary when they notice Steve clinging to Tony. His eyes are wet.

“Stevie?” Bucky moves to join the hug. Winter follows.

By the end of it, the four of them have cried, laughed, and hugged until Tony’s ribs creaked.

“You know what my first thought was when Shuri told me you were alive?” Bucky mumbles from where he’s leaning his head against Winter’s right shoulder.

Winter makes an interrogative noise and Steve and Tony lift their heads from their mugs.

“I asked if they cut me in half like a starfish.”

Winter considers this. “Better a starfish than a hydra,” he says.

“Hey,” says Tony, more alert than he’s been for hours. “You know how you’ve been saying you want something to replace the old Soviet star?”

They take their hot chocolate back to Tony’s workshop and FRIDAY fills the air with images.

“ _Protoreaster linckii_ ,” Winter decides. There’s a picture of one with gray parts that almost look blue.

Steve paints the starfish on his arm, apologizing the entire time because he’s half asleep and keeps needing to correct mistakes Winter can’t even see. The paint is thick and layered in the end. Winter loves the texture.

“I’m keeping it,” he announces.

The starfish was Bucky’s idea of how Winter was born. The red, white, and blue make him think of Steve. Most importantly, the pattern in the center reminds Winter of some models of the arc reactor.

Most of the starfish’s skin is blue-gray. A pattern of bright red tubercles extends up along each of the five thick arms so the ends are all red. The tops of some of the knobby protrusions look white. They might be scars, but that seems right too.

 

Things are better.

Tony tries to be optimistic, but he’s had a lot go wrong in his life when he’s wanted something so much before. Steve is trying. They haven’t gone back to what they were before. They’re something new now. Something Tony doesn’t want to lose. He’ll keep Steve as long as Bucky sticks around and Bucky seeks them out now, even Winter.

Winter might think he’s fooling Tony, but Tony knows he sleeps in Tony’s walk-in closet at least half the time. One day, maybe he’ll migrate to the other side of the bed. Tony wouldn’t mind that.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Open Your Arms to Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17403683) by [Akaihyou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaihyou/pseuds/Akaihyou), [araydre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/araydre/pseuds/araydre)




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